Thanks for all of the suggestions. I'm just a beginner at this but at least I seem to be slowly making some progress with the good help.

I keep trying several things over and over...

I again tried booting the 53799 debug live cd with everything configured the same as when the release live cd works. Now I got a good capture of the log (more complete than what I posted on 23-Sep thinking I had a serial problem):

I'll file a bug report with this info. It would seem good to get the debug live cd working under the same conditions where the release live cd works. Then the next step might be to use the debug live cd to figure out why things break when I change the cd from being the IDE master to the slave?

Thanks! Now I'm able to boot the live cd dbg r53891 when the cd drive is master. If I try to run the boot cd dbg with the same setup it fails with a prompt that says no HD is present (but it is there as the slave device).

I tried the r53891 boot cd dbg with the HD as master and the CD as slave but that stops. I've added the debug log here: bug 6413.

Yes, using the older UniATA I was able to get the r53891 build cd to install onto my CF HD. Now I'm able to boot from the CF (HD) and get further. No problem reading the registry as when I tried installing via VMware.

It now loads drivers (on the blue ReactOS screen) with AFD.sys being the last one. Then it pauses for several seconds on that screen. Then the screen goes black and the last two lines of this debug log are written.

Could you describe the eBox-3300MX variant you're using? If you're looking to get a sample of other models http://www.robosavvy.com might be able to help you. I'm particularly keen on the eBox-3310MX that they have in stock, since it uses a Vortex86MX+ , which has twice the performance thanks to improvements in the memory controller and branch predictor. Amount of RAM supported has also gone up to 1GB.

That is just a DX version and that is what I'd prefer to get working with ReactOS. If all I need is a console program with one or two serial ports my goal is to use the DX versions of the eBox or the least expensive board I can find.

I'm aware of the MX and I anticipate using it as well but in many control projects the extra power isn't needed.